


Support Network

by sanctuary_for_all



Series: Partners [67]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Established Relationship, Family, Feels, Fluff, Humor, I swear I didn't mean for the Charlie-Brandon dynamic to happen, M/M, Remember Charlie isn't Danny's kid in this universe, but also some heavier stuff, it just did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22272328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: You never know what shape yours will end up taking. (Partners-verse version of Steve and Danny's storyline in 10x13)
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: Partners [67]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/105629
Comments: 16
Kudos: 251





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fresh reminder, Charlie is Stan's biological child in this universe, not Danny's.

There were some things that no amount of previous life experience really prepared you for.

Danny took a deep breath. "Okay, explain it to me one more time."

Charlie lifted his chin, giving Danny a stubborn look that reminded him unnervingly of Rachel. "It's simple. This Blake kid in my grade has been harassing Brandon all _week_ , and I just now found out about it."

Yeah, he'd been afraid that's what they'd said. Feeling sick in a way only fatherhood had ever made him feel, he turned to his son. "And you didn't tell anyone about this harassment _because_..."

Brandon made an exasperated noise, which was weirdly comforting in addition to being completely ridiculous. "Because I didn't want anyone fighting because of me! You know how Noelani would get! Besides, the whole reason Blake is pushing me around in the first place is because _I_ wouldn't fight him!"

"So it's better to let him keep pushing you down for the rest of the school year?" Charlie shot back.

"It wouldn't have been that long!" Brandon threw his hands up in the air in a way Danny recognized from sheer muscle memory. "I was figuring out what to do! I just hadn't come up with anything yet!"

Charlie folded his arms across his chest. "Well, I did."

Brandon spread his hands out in front of him. "You _punched_ him."

"I had to!" Charlie was full of righteous indignation. "No one punches my B.O.R. and gets away with it."

Danny looked heavenward. "So there's an acronym now?"

"We decided it was easier." That was Brandon, his exasperation at Charlie forgotten for a second. "Brother-once-removed is too long to say, especially when you have to do it a bunch of times."

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, already able to feel the headache coming on. "So I take it we should be expecting Rachel at this little parent meeting?"

For the first time in all this, Charlie looked faintly embarrassed. "I... kind of told Principal Colby that Mom was out of town on a business trip and I was staying with you guys for the week? You're listed on my emergency contacts, so she believed me."

Danny sighed. He hadn't known about the emergency contacts thing, which was... honestly, he had no idea how he felt about that. "And _why_ would you prefer I yell at you than the person who is _actually_ your parent?"

Charlie's embarrassed look slid straight into uncomfortable for a moment. "Mom gets weird about the whole brother-once-removed thing. She _definitely_ wouldn't understand that punching Blake was my _job_ as part of Brandon's ohana." His expression brightened. "But I knew _you_ would, Uncle Danny."

Danny was not mentally equipped for this. "I am _begging_ you never to call me that in front of your mother." He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. "And you remind me so much of Grace sometimes it freaks me out a little."

"Really?" Charlie beamed as if he'd been given the greatest compliment in existence, then turned to Brandon as a thought hit him. "I _had_ to do it, because it's totally what Grace would have done if she'd been here and my age. It's what she would have _wanted_ me to do."

That stopped Brandon short, as if the Grace argument was so irrefutable that it blew his side out of the water. Finally, he sighed. "Okay, but what's going to happen now? Blake's just going to want to fight _both_ of us, and I want that to happen even _less_ than I want him to fight me!"

"This Blake kid isn't fighting _anybody_ ," Danny said firmly, sure on this one point if nothing else. "As soon as his parents get here, we're going to get that little shit out of class and make sure he doesn't do anything to _either_ —"

He cut himself off when the door opened, and Steve and Principal Colby both came out of her office. He'd been sent in there to deal with her, since Danny tended to get _incredibly_ blunt when one of his kids was in peril and it would help no one if he got himself banned again. (It had been literally _years_ , but school secretaries had long memories.)

From the carefully blank expression on Steve's face and the polite "well, this is embarrassing" look the principal was wearing, this wasn't going to be good.

Steve sighed. "We're not having the meeting." He glanced over at the principal, who shrugged apologetically, then turned back to Danny. "Blake's parents never showed up, and they didn't respond to any of Principal Colby's calls."

Danny saw red. "Well, that is un-fu—" He glanced at the kids, fatherly instincts strong enough to cut even through the anger. "—freaking acceptable."

Principal Colby lifted her hands helplessly. "I'm sorry, Detective Williams. But like I told your husband, there's not a great deal we can do."

There might not be a lot the school could do, but Danny had a few ideas. "Fantastic. Come on, Steve. We have someplace we need to be."

Charlie looked relieved at whatever he saw in Danny's face, while Steve shifted into that resigned-but-prepared look that he always got when he knew he was going to have to be the sane one.

Brandon, clearly aware of the general direction of his father's thoughts, reached out to catch Danny's hand. "I know you're worried about me, Danno," he said solemnly. "But don't make me be worried about you, too."

Danny's chest clenched as he squeezed Brandon's hand. "No fighting. I promise."

000

Of course, that didn't mean he couldn't try for a little intimidation.

So, yes, Danny did technically have Jerry look up the dad's number and then _technically_ follow him in an unmarked police car before pulling him over. But he had Brandon's voice in his head the whole time, and when he found out the poor guy was going through a nasty divorce that kind of put an end to that. Especially when he was so apologetic about his kid.

So the great talking-it-out was arranged between the three kids, with Charlie telling Rachel that Brandon had invited him to sleep over for the night. (Danny's involvement in the conversation was exactly 24 seconds long, which was about 24 seconds longer than he'd wanted to be there.) It ended up working out surprisingly well, enough that the three kids ran around the house playing while Danny and Luke — Blake's dad — were drinking beers on the couch and Steve and Tani were talking in the kitchen. He'd heard about Junior getting deployed, and as he watched them he reminded himself to do his part in tag-teaming her emotional health until the kid got back. Between the two of them, they were basically experts at the whole “deployment sucks” thing.

The thought was engrossing enough it took awhile for him to realize that Luke was staring at him. Danny met his gaze, eyebrow raised. "I feel like there's a question brewing."

Luke was about to deny it for a moment, then gave in and gestured toward the kitchen with his beer bottle. "You look happy."

"I'm happier than I ever thought I could be," Danny said honestly. "But that took time. I had to work through a lot of shit first."

Luke sighed. "Yeah." He turned slightly, attention caught by a shout from one of the kids as they raced through the house, then refocused on Danny with a surprisingly hesitant expression. "Feel free to tell me to mind my own business, but I was wondering exactly how Charlie fits into all this." He made a circling gesture that encompassed the house and everyone in it. "Because I heard he and Brandon call each other some sort of brothers, but I also heard him call you—"

Danny winced. "Don't say it." Then he sighed. "Charlie is the son of my ex-wife and her second ex-husband. He and Brandon call themselves brothers-once-removed because, even though they're not related at all, they share a sister — Grace, the daughter I had with my ex-wife."

Luke nodded slowly, like he was trying to mull that all over. "So... you two are friends again?"

"Not... really?" Danny shook his head. "Honestly, I don't really know how Charlie happened, except that I ended up with a big support network and she didn't."

Luke looked almost wistful at that. "So, any advice on how to make that happen?"

Danny's gaze wandered back to Steve and Tani, chest tight at the thought of how incredibly lucky he'd been. He had a family here as big or bigger than the one in Jersey, full of so much love a man could spend his life drunk on it. As deeply weird as it was for Charlie to adopt himself into the family, he couldn't exactly blame the kid. These people could suck anyone in.

But that wouldn't be useful information for Luke.

He let out a breath. "Make sure you heal," he said finally. "Because your family seems broken now, but the truth is that it's just going to get bigger. Weirder, kind of oddly taped together, but bigger." He focused on Steve, throat closing up a little. " _Someone_ is going to come along and make you believe in love again. They're going to make all this shit you're going through now seem like a necessary step on the path to where you're supposed to be, and you need to be _ready_ for them. If you're not, you'll miss out on everything." He cleared his throat, turning back to Luke to distract himself from the sudden sting in his eyes. "I could have, so damn easily. I don't recommend it."

Luke nodded solemnly. "Thank you," he said solemnly, then smiled in a way even he seemed surprised by. "I'm more and more sure I'm going to take you and Steve up on your offer to call if I need to talk to someone."

"Bring Blake if you can. I'll make dinner." Danny smiled back, taking a drink of his beer. "Hell, you might even get adopted into the family."


	2. Chapter 2

That night, after Blake and his dad had gone home and Brandon and Charlie had finally drifted off in Brandon's room, Danny flopped dramatically back on his and Steve's bed. "So, that was exhausting."

"But important." Steve smiled down at him, wearing the Superman t-shirt Danny and the kids had gotten him. Danny had a Batman t-shirt Steve and the kids had gotten him the following week. "You did good work today, Danny."

Danny gave him a wry look. "Thanks to you and Brandon talking me out of a fistfight."

Steve's smile widened into a grin as he crawled up the bed until he was braced over Danny. "Just doing our job."

Danny pulled him down for a long, slow kiss. "Never stop doing it."

"Wasn't planning on it." Steve dropped down onto the bed next to Danny, snuggling closer as Danny wrapped an arm around him. "I'm also here if you want to talk about Charlie calling you—"

"No." Danny stopped him with another kiss. "I've decided I'm going to be in denial about that for a little while, okay?"

"Fair enough." Steve's expression went soft. "You should take it as a compliment, though. He clearly sees you as a person he can count on."

"He also clearly feels responsible for defending Brandon." Danny sighed. "Is it time to get our kid into therapy? Because I _get_ the no fighting thing, but if he's not going to defend himself..."

Steve's own expression was solemn. "I don't think he saw Blake as something big enough to defend himself _against_. He's using a different scale than most people."

"You mean like you do." Danny's chest twisted as he shifted close enough to press his forehead against Steve's. "Neither of you should have to deal with all this shit just because you _can_. I didn't say it before, but those Naval Academy kids deserved to be drop-kicked into the ocean. You didn't need any toughening up."

Steve looked at Danny with so much love it just about broke his heart. "The good things make up for it," he said quietly, voice thick. "And we make sure Brandon has a lot of good things in his life. In his head, that's what he was protecting."

"He doesn't _have_ to, though. It's _our_ job to protect _him_." The thought that he couldn't, at least not as much as he wanted to, hurt the same way it always did with Grace. "And okay, fine, we won't do it by fighting if he doesn't want us to. But there are _other_ ways to do that."

"And I think today proved that to Brandon." Steve's voice was soft as he laid his hand against the side of Danny's face. "He'll be okay, Danno."

Danny closed his eyes a moment, letting himself be comforted. When he opened his eyes again, he made his voice deliberately light. "I might not be, if Rachel ever finds out about the 'Uncle Danny' thing."

Steve grinned, leaning in for another kiss. "Don't worry. Grace and I will protect you."

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my [original fiction,](https://jennifferwardell.wixsite.com/mybooks) my [blog,](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)!


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